Hermione Granger and the Couples' Counsellor
by Kazakh Doom
Summary: Sometime after the Battle of Hogwarts, Ron and Hermione are happily married. Alas, as far as Hermione's concerned, she MAY need couples' counselling...
1. Chapter 1

It's late at night at the Three Broomsticks. Dark clouds rumble in the distance. Much is silent in Hogsmeade. Alas, much noise is blaring from inside Madame Rosmerta's most-loved pub.

Ron Weasley spends his nights here. He's had a long day at the Aurors' Office...as he always does. He guzzles butterbeers as if they were water. The mugs refill themselves as they're emptied.

Madame Rosmerta wanders here and there, serving beverages to other patrons. A cloth floats here and there, wiping up the tables.

Rosmerta shows off her low-cut to Ron. She tries to remain subtle about it...but any fool can see-who's not flooded with butterbeer-that Ron is this close to living one of his most sacred MILF fantasies.

And yet, ANOTHER one of Ron's MILF fantasies wanders in through the pub's front door. It's Fleur Delacour-or Fleur Weasley, as British wizardry's still trying to get used to calling her. At least Ron's mother has. Bless her soul.

She caresses her husband, Bill, as he's sharing way too many laughs with way too many he-wizards. She stuffs an herb in his mouth-which freshens his breath in an instant-and kisses him. She flaps her blonde hair. She overrelies on her French accent to communicate...

Ron looks her way, and grins from behind his mug. He delights in what will happen next.

She comes over. She expresses her low-cut. She caresses his Weasley-like ginger hair. She kisses him on the head, and leaves him be. He watches her from behind as she does...as he did when he first laid eyes on her. He still remembers that school year in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, when he and Harry Potter were in their fourth year at the school, and the Beauxbatons chicks expressed the best of themselves for all of the Hogwarts students in the hall as they ate-or hesitated from eating, in the case of all the male students...

You'd think that after over a decade of evolution, the married Ron Weasley would learn to look at other women less. But alas, in the grand scheme of things...there is no cure for masculinity, is there?

And Ron's a wizard. Magic amplifies everything inside the body, including testosterone...

Is there tripe in his stomach? I'm sure a lot of ladies have been wondering that about him ever since first laying eyes on him...assuming that they can see past Harry Potter, who's almost always with him...

Ron staggers through the streets, trying to find his way home. He'd ask an Auror for help getting home...if only he wasn't an Auror himself.

He passes Padma Patel on the street. He beams, and waves at her. He behaves as if he's drunk. She avoids him, of course.

She probably remembers how much he neglected and abused her at the Yule Ball all those years ago. But of course he would; he wanted to go to that ball with a French witch who's two years older than him...

His wife once thought of Indian-Britons as pathological homewreckers. But ever since the Yule Ball, she hasn't been so sure...

At last, he finds his place. He stumbles through the front gate, and across the lawn. He reaches in his robes for his wand. It's not there. He chuckles, raises his hand in the air, and _Accio_s it. It conjures itself into his hand.

His wife doesn't remember him excelling that much in Transfiguration when he was at Hogwarts. But then, judging what's about to happen next, he'd better be as up-to-date on his magic as he can possibly be...

He tries to use the key to unlock the front door. The key doesn't fit. Confused, he uses _Alohomora_. That doesn't work either. He remembers a spell his wife used to break Sirius Black out of a prison a very long time ago. He stands back, points his wand at the door, and shouts, "_BOMBARDA!_"

The door explodes. The shock sends Ron flying backwards. He smashes the gate, and skids across the street. He's sore all over. Debris lies all around him. His robes are torn all over him.

He groans as he rolls over on his side. His front door is smoking...and there's a red flame coming from it.

A witch, dressed in dark clothing, rises above it. Her eyes glow bright blue. She bares fangs, and spreads black wings. Her hair is black.

Oh bloody hell; Hermione's having a mood swing again! And there ain't no way Ron-Ron's scurrying away from this with his welfare intact!


	2. Chapter 2

Still sore from the explosion, Ron stands, and approaches Hermione. She looks down upon him, with a menacing glare that won't fatigue.

He tries to apologize. He reminds her of how demanding his work is, and how he wouldn't have to go to the Three Broomsticks every night if only Britain's dark wizards would cut him and Harry more slack...

She screams like a banshee, and knocks him backwards again. She spins in circles, and creates a whirlwind around her...

Ron reaches for his wand. It's broken in two...with only a few splinters holding it together. Ah, he remembers those times... And yet, this hardly seems the time or place for such reminiscence.

At the time he thought the Womping Willow was the worst thing that'd ever happened to him. But by the time this night is over-if it ever ends-he'll prefer the Womping Willow's wrath.

A bright light shoots out of the whirlwind, and knocks Ron backwards again. And the chase is on.

The Minister has found her gavel. And she's about to pound it with the force of fifty mountain trolls' clubs...

Ron lands among Fluffy's front legs. The dog wakes, and glares down at him with his three heads. Ron whimpers. They start barking; one head bares its fangs and charges him.

Ron rolls away, and falls. He lands among a patch of devil's snare. The vines swarm from all over, suffocating him. He panics, and thrashes. The vines constrict tighter. This could be the endgame...

Hermione conjures a flaming serpent. It takes Ron in its jaws, saving him from the plant. It stands high, on its belly, and simulates chewing Ron. Ron cries out for help each time the serpent opens its mouth to chew.

The serpent belches. Ron is shot across the sky, and lands on an anvil. He's surrounded by a hoard of mountain trolls. They take their clubs, and start pounding the shite out of him.

He tries to apologize to Hermione. But nothing will dare sway the Muggle-born Minister's appetite for husband-torture...

One troll pounds on an end of the anvil too hard. It becomes a catapault, and shoots Ron across the sky again. He lands in a lake. Grindylows swarm from all around, creating a bait ball around him.

They squeeze him. They pull his hairs out. They bite him. If only Ron's wand worked...

They swim away. At first Ron thinks he's been saved. Alas, he gets an eerie feeling. He looks around him, while submerged...

He sees two big bright yellow eyes. And just like that, he's petrified.

He sinks to bottom. A merman finds him. He arches his brows, gathers it, and takes it to his village. Apparently there are stores in merfolk villages that sell petrified wizards and witches.

He's put on display in the store next to Dennis Creevey. Interesting; it seems that getting attacked by basilisks runs in the Creevey family, for some reason...

A mermaid comes along. She sees Ron. She smiles, and squeezes her camel toe with her hand... She gathers Ron in her arms and swims to the cashier.

Ron's getting some great shots of her low-cut. He didn't get nearly as good footage that time the Triwizard Tournament put a spell on him that would keep him alive for as long as it took Harry to salvage him from the bottom of the Great Lake, with only gillyweed to keep him from drowning...

She pays for him, and tries to swim out of the store with him. She doesn't get far.

A bolt of fire shoots through the lake, and hits the mermaid in the chest. Herimone has pounced on her, and is now using _Crucio_ on Ron's buyer.

Now Ron KNOWS Hermione's not sane. The Hermione he knows loves all magical creatures too much to hurt them-even though merfolk would be classified as beings by the Ministry along with wizards, if only they weren't racist against hags and vampires, who're hopelessly classified as beings, despite both races' beastly habits...

Around Ron, all the merfolk panic and swim back into their homes. In a few, he finds out why.

Inferi have come. They collect Ron, and swim away with him. Hermione's still torturing the mermaid. Ron's still petrified...and doesn't see if she sees him get taken away.

He hopes she didn't. He still loves her, but he hopes she didn't...

They take him to shore. Ron's hearing is nearly spent to the noises of a ton of recently-uprooted mandrakes, screaming like babies in a pile near the shore. Some of the Inferi cover their ears. His bringers cover their ears as soon as they're ashore.

Other Inferi arrive, take Ron from them, carry him across the shore, and throw him into the mandrake pile. It's noisy. Ron thinks he's going to go deaf. But as soon as he can move again, he crawls away.

The Inferi are on a dogpile atop the mandrake pile. Ron crawls beneath their legs and feet, and starts running. None of them see him leave. He runs for his life through a scary forest.

He doesn't get far. He runs into a giant spider web, and gets stuck. Now he's screaming like a girl. He's about to get reunited with his worst nightmare.

Acromantulas come from clicks around. They sense his fear. They swarm all over him, covering him in a cocoon of themselves. Ron's screams are muffled.

Good, Ron thinks for a moment; at least Hermione won't follow me out here if she can't hear me scream. If only I didn't have to die by my worst nightmares' appetites instead...

The acromantulas scatter. Ron's relieved. He's still stuck in the web, but at least things aren't so bad anymore. But of course, if they're running away, they're about to get worse...

Their mother's here, of course. He knows it's not Aragog, because he died when he and Harry were sixteen. Although Ron himself might've been seventeen at the time... Did he get poisoned by Professor Slughorn's mead before or after Aragog's funeral?

Or technically, it was DRACO'S mead, but... O dear Merlin, what in the name of Azkaban is going to save Mr. Hermione Granger from that gigantic spider that looks like it's hungry enough to eat a Hungarian Horntail?

"Weasley arachnophobe," the acromantula mother says, scarier than when Aragog spoke to him and Harry that one time in the Forbidden Forest, "long have my kind awaited your foolish return to our hunting grounds!"

Ron screams like a girl, louder than ever. The acromantula approaches him slowly...

With another airborne ball of fire, Hermione arrives, just in time, and sets the monster aflame. Ron's relieved; with some luck, Hermione's finally sober.

The noise stops. The smoke has cleared. Hermione's back is still turned to Ron. Ron plays his luck, and tries to nourish her.

He admits that he's not perfect. And he's more than committed to helping her and himself get couples' counselling, if she's still just as committed to him as he knows he'll always be to...

She whirls, and bares her fangs. Her eyes are still glowing bright blue.

_Bloody hell_, Ron thinks...

Hermione screams like a banshee again. Ron gets blasted through the forest like a projectile.

He's in a clearing in a Chinese cherry forest. He looks around. He's surrounded by four very big, and very hungry-looking Chinese Fireballs. And Ron knows-based on how much Hermione probably stared at Viktor Krum during the Triwizard Tournament when he wasn't looking-that those dragons are VERY passionate wizard-eaters.

Hermione apparates, and lands atop a giant wireless. She points her wand at it, and for this, it plays Nelly Furtado's "Maneater."

All the dragons take snaps at Ron. Ron screams, rolls, ducks, limps, and does everything in his ability to avoid getting eaten. He'd sure love to tape up his wand now... But then he'd remember what happened to Gilderoy Lockhart in the Chamber of Secrets that one time, and would remember that old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat is something that the wizarding world has somehow been taught to underrate throughout the years...

He looks around. To his dismay, Viktor Krum is mounted atop each dragon. Apparently he's learned a self-duplication spell since the Triwizard Tournament...assuming he didn't know it at the time. But of course, Ron didn't know that Krum was still in school at the time of the 422nd Quidditch World Cup...

Krum raises his arm, and grunts like a beast as the dragons torture Ron-all of him. Ron can't always see Hermione...but he can tell she's enjoying this. She still likes Viktor; he always knew it. And yet, here he is, down here, getting punished for looking down the blouses of older witches...

One of the dragons inhales. Ron dreads what follows. It roasts him, of course. He screams like a baby as his body sears with pain.

Now he's atop a frozen lake. Everywhere above him, Dementors fly. They're all swarming around him. One dive-bombs him...

They come from everywhere, and start feasting on his soul. This whole ordeal starts to hurt Ron all at once, and he screams, and cries, and begs for mercy...

Hermione apparates into a forest nearby, and watches. She's smiling.

Before her, a family of otter/patronuses play in the water. Patronuses are intangible; they phase through the ice, and swim in it, as if it weren't frozen. They all seem happy. They don't seem to miss a certain Jack Russell terrier/patronus that used to bark and chase them, like the groom that could never love an otter...or another, even...

At this, Ron would be surprised if Hermione's patronus hadn't transformed into a wolverine, or a basilisk, or... Or hell, even a damned Chinese Fireball, if she doesn't love him anymore...

She can tell her beloved husband's not having fun. And it's about to get worse...


	3. Chapter 3

Outside of all of this, Hermione sits in a stable position, almost like Zen. A hag has her under a spell. She's enclosed in a vision, where she can torture and get mad at her husband as much and for as long as she must. She's sitting comfortably, and doesn't appear to be suffering.

In these parts, the hag is known as the Couples' Counsellor. It's hard to tell right now, but she's the likely savior of Hermione's and Ron's marriage.

All over her hut, there are baking pans. There's a skeleton of a human child in almost each one. As the Couples' Counsellor watches her own work in progress, she munches on a child's leg. She could sure use a housekeeper...or a few housekeeping spells. Ron wonders if she and Nymphadora Tonks were separated at birth... But then, that would've made Tonks 224 years old when she died, wouldn't it have?

She sure wouldn't've caught Lupin's eye if that were the case, Ron's sure. And yet...HOW long did Lupin and Tonks know each other before they started seeing each other?

Ron sits next to her, tapping his foot. He's glad his wife's getting what she wants. And he's glad she's not doing any of this to him for real. But she sure stays in those visions for a while, and he's starting to miss the days of their love when sex was on the dinner menu more than five nights a week...

"How much longer," he asks, "will she have to have these induced hallucinations?"

The Couples' Counsellor only smiles. "As long as it takes for the urge to die, Master Weasley. A woman's heart is like a terrapin. You can race it, but you sure can't rush it."

"Okay. How long will it take for the urge to die, then?!"

The Couples' Counsellor only sighs, smiles, and rips meat off the child's baked thigh. The seasonings on that dark meat sure smell good...

In Hermione's lap, Crookshanks meows. He gives himself a bath while waiting for his maid to wake.

Alas, he's in no hurry. All around the hut, Kneazles, cats, and cat/Kneazle hybrids rest and wander the place. Some of them lick up the leftovers in the baking pans. But of course; hags are cat ladies by nature-or, Kneazle ladies, rather...

Ron stares at Crookshanks loathsomely. He still remembers when he held a grudge against him for allegedly having eaten Scabbers. Now "Scabbers" is dead; and yet, Ron perceives he's madder at Crookshanks than he is at a certain rat-becoming animagus...who owed his best friend a life debt, and paid it by killing himself so they could save Hermione and escape from Bellatrix... But for now, that cat's lucky Ron's in love with his...maid.

Ron sighs, and shakes his head. Sometimes he feels like he's married a Chinese Fireball...or the ex-Yule Ball date of an ex-fighter of one...


End file.
